This cake was an (Almond) JOY to make!

Thought I would lead with the picture.  This cake was so much fun to come up with and make!  I used the good old coconut cake recipe, chocolate frosting, and lovely whole almonds on top.

Apparently it was declared a success by the lucky consumers - Mom's coworkers.

And now I'd like to make lots of cakes based on fun candy bars.  Suggestions are always welcome - and may result in extra large sampling portions.

Nostalgia

*sigh* I miss making cakes...will you give me an excuse to make one?

S-U-C-C-E-S-S. That's the way you spell delicious!

We did it!!  We made an attractive AND delicious cake that fed all of the guests!

It was a long process, but absolutely, positively worth it.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Here's how the weekend went down:
Thursday
Fly from Denver (12:59 am) to Charlotte (6:00 am).  Fly from Charlotte (7:55 am) to Baltimore (9:00 am).
10 am - home to begin mixing and baking cakes.
11:30 am - fall asleep on the couch.
1:00 pm - wake up to sound of Mom mixing more batter.  Get up and help.
4:00 pm - begin frosting the cakes that are cool enough to do so. Cover and stack sheet cakes in tub for transport.
6:00 pm - set cakes aside, go to dinner.
7:30 pm - mix and bake last two cakes, then frost ALL remaining layers.

Friday
10:00 am - wake up and clean off counter top, prep for fondant.
10:15 am - fondant all three layers of cake, place them in their box/carrying container, then take over the fridge with them.
12:00 am - buy wedding gift (yay employee discount!)
1:00 pm - drive to venue
2:00 pm - lunch with some of the wedding party
4:30 pm - rehearsal!  in the heat :(
6:30 pm - rehearsal dinner with the most delicious crab cake ever!
9:00 pm - drive home.
10:00 pm - check on cakes to make sure they're still okay (they were.)

Saturday
Wedding Day!
7:13 am - wake up, shower, haul ass.
8:45 am - pick up friend and head to Annapolis for nail appointment
9:30 am - Manicure/pedicure with bridal party
11:00 am - sushi lunch with TWO for ONE special!
2:00 pm - Head back to venue to get hair done and change into dress.
3:15 pm - CAKE ARRIVES at venue!  Run downstairs to unload car and bring cakes into the reception area.  Poke holes in each layer and insert skewers for support. Assemble layers.  Pipe frosting around connection points.  Place cake topper in GOBS of frosting and add flowers.
4:00 pm - get makeup done.
4:30 pm - help bride into her dress, make sure everything is perfect :)
5:50 pm - head downstairs
6:00 pm - WEDDING! :)
6:15 pm - pictures and cocktail hour
7:00 pm - reception
7:05 pm - Make a toast to the happy couple.
8:00 pm - dancing!
8:30 pm - Cake cutting and eating.
9:30 pm - track down a piece of cake (after they had all been put away...I was too busy dancing)  bring cake to dance floor to eat.
10:00 pm - hear that the cake was DELICIOUS from many people, hear that someone ate 6 pieces.
11:30 pm - Go home and collapse.

SUPERB wedding, superb weekend!

Things are shaping up!

Ok, let's be honest.  I don't really expect to win "best wedding cake of the year", but the cakes are definitely starting to improve.  I've really come to enjoy the sugar jolt that I get from the cake sample I have.  Same cake and frosting as usual (both made with coconut milk instead of cow milk), but this time we tried a 'flavored fondant'.  It tasted MUCH better than the Wilton version...which I will never EVER eat again.

The fondant was a bit sticky, which made it difficult to flip during the rolling out process, but was manageable with some help from powdered sugar.  I've gotten better at rolling out the fondant without grumbling angrily.  After putting the fondant on top of the cakes I piped some of the excess frosting around the seams and in a heart on top.  It's actually quite presentable.

Back into the swing of things

So I feel like I have been on an unannounced cake hiatus.  I'll blame school and work...but it's still time to get back into it.  Especially the decorating.

The cake we made today helped me to realize that I have the piping skills of a 7 year old (give or take 3 years).  So while my cakes and frosting taste absolutely delicious, I have this strange desire to actually have it LOOK good too.  Weird, I know.

Anyway, we dyed the frosting yellow because I am already sick of white cakes (plus, let's be honest - colors are way more fun!).  After stacking the cakes and frosting them we decided to practice putting a border around the cake.  This is where my lack of skills became quite apparent.

You've gone...vegan??

So my friend (the bride) cares about the treatment of animals.  She has very recently decided that she will only get eggs and meat from a local farmer who (I assume) treats his animals humanely (before ending their lives).

What does this mean for me??  NO BUTTER or MILK in the wedding cake and the eggs that I use must be acquired from said farmer.  I hope he has a LOT of chickens, because we're planning to make about 7 cakes.

So after getting over the initial ingredient shift panic, I calmed down enough to realize that I could be creative with the cakes.  Instead of milk I used coconut milk, and in lieu of butter - crisco!  So while the cake now makes the cut, my arteries hate me.  My "sample" pieces are getting smaller and smaller...which is arguably a good thing anyway.

So in summary - this cake was still quite delicious, and I even subbed the coconut milk and crisco into the frosting.  Both parts turned out great, though I used the "butter flavored" crisco, which really just tinted the frosting slightly yellow.  Oh well, the whole cake still disappeared quickly once I brought it in to work.  (Surprise!)

Rolled Buttercream a la Blizzard

Blizzards are a great time to bake cakes!  The only downside...I don't have the normal number of cake consumers to help distribute the calorie load.  Alas, we'll manage.

Anyway!  I went back to the good ol' standard white cake supreme this time.  I still LOVE this recipe!  Super easy to make, not an overwhelming number of ingredients, and REALLY light and fluffy.  Superb!  Since it was a 'whatever cake' (read: it had been a while since I made a cake and I was avoiding homework), I used some of the leftover chocolate buttercream frosting from several cakes back to ice the crumb layer.  The two layers also came out quite uniform, so there was less of a weird leaning Tower of Pisa thing going on.

Making the rolled buttercream was an interesting experience.  I used the dough hook attachment for the mixer (for my first time EVER) and it was quite odd.  It did mix everything, but the time lapsed addition of the powdered sugar ensured a constant vapor cloud of sugar.  I was worried that I would get a sugar high from breathing it in for so long.  Two pounds of sugar and a cup of crisco later...and we have a pretty cool almost-fondant topping.

The rolled buttercream was quite a bit less hearty than the fondant, so rolling it out was more difficult.  I ended up putting quite a bit more powdered sugar in as I was rolling it out.  Once rolled, we slabbed it on the cake without any major disasters!  Hurrah!  Mom is the official excess buttercream cutter, and we're still working on the technique for that.  The main issue so far is making sure that we leave enough buttercream (or fondant) to go all the way to the bottom of the cake.

This tastes SO MUCH BETTER than Fondant!  I will say it now: Fondant Sucks.  Rolled Buttercream Rocks!